Volunteer Spotlight: David Sanchez
David Sanchez, Crisis Line volunteer
The Rape Recovery Center volunteer team consists of nearly 150 incredible individuals who give their time, talents, and passion to furthering our mission of serving survivors and educating the community about sexual violence. This month, we are so pleased to spotlight our compassionate volunteer, David Sanchez!
David is one of our amazing Crisis Line volunteers. David begun volunteering with The Rape Recovery Center through the fraternity, Beta Theta Pi after completing our 40 hour training. David is an active member in his community and an ally to survivors of sexual assault. We are so happy to have him as one of our volunteers!
What motivated you to become a volunteer at the Rape Recovery Center?
My motivation for completing the 40 hr training and volunteering with the RRC comes from 2 of the most positive influences in my life. First, through my involvement and position in the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity. Beta was my first introduction to the RRC and their crucial work in the community. Ever since joining Beta and seeing the many benefits of our partnership with them, I've wanted to become more involved with the RRC. The second reason was my involvement with It's On Us, the collegiate organization for Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention for college campuses. Last year I was appointed the Survivor Resource and Ally captain. In order to better fulfill my position I completed the training and began volunteering. It's been a powerful force for good and sense of purpose in my life. I now serve as the President of It's On Us at the University of Utah.
What have you enjoyed most about your time as an RRC volunteer?
What i have most enjoyed about volunteering with the RRC is the joy of being able to help a survivor. The communication skills I've developed thanks to the 40 Hr trainings give me peace of mind when speaking to a survivor and usually results with them feeling better after having talked with me than before we talked. I feel a sense of purpose in empowering survivors and others who support survivors. There are many things I love about volunteering with the RRC, but that is my greatest takeaway.
What is most challenging about your volunteer work at the RRC?
Volunteering with the RRC has leaked into many aspects of my personal life, which is a good thing, but also a challenge. I now get survivors who reach out to me on campus and in my every day life, and disclose or want to talk about their journey of healing. And I am very happy to do so because I know what that can mean to a survivor. It can be challenging though because it means I need to make sure I'm always practicing self care because I never know when I might need that to keep me grounded throughout my week.
Tell us a little more about how you spend your time outside of volunteering for the RRC - hobbies, passions, work, school?
Outside of the RRC, as I stated I am the President of It's On Us at the University of Utah. I am also a Co-lead in Medicine and Health Sciences for a non profit call Imaginemos Utah; an organization dedicated to developing Latinx leaders in Utah. I also serve as the Vice President of Risk Management for the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity, where i teach safety, consent, and responsible conduct for my fraternity of over 100 members. In my very limited free time I love to read, play piano, and go dancing. And if I can do one or more of those things with good friends around, even better.
You have immersed yourself in the very difficult work of addressing sexual violence. What gives you hope as you approach this work?
What gives me hope in the work of fighting sexual violence comes in seeing the many organizations across the country, state, and my college campus all working toward the same vision; putting and end to sexual violence and supporting survivors. On of my greatest motivators came after a call from a secondary survivor while working on the crisis line. It was a father, calling on behalf of his daughter who had just been recently assaulted. As i gave him some guidance, references to resources, and coping mechanisms, i got to know him well on a personal level. We had many things in common. He was the kinda doctor I aspire to be when i grow up. We shared a lot of the same background and hobbies. And I could tell by his deep concern that he loves his daughter more than life itself, which is something I look forward to for when I have a family of my own. After ending the call I had taken on some of his secondary trauma for myself and had to take some time and practice self care. After some reflection and meditation, I knew the work we do in advocacy is meant to build a better world. I want to help build that better world, so that someday in the future, I can send my daughter off to college and rest peacefully knowing it's safer then than it is now for women. I wanna build a world where I hopefully won't have to ever make that type of phone call myself as a parent
What is your message to others looking to get involved in this work, or considering volunteer work at the RRC?
I encourage anyone and everyone to go do the training, because they will find so many opportunities to grow. There's so much you can learn and do to be a survivor advocate and the more people we have doing a little bit at a time, the greater the social impact will be down the road.